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TSA searches, bomb risk near zero

The TSA uses the pat-down method on this man flying from Seattle. |
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By JIM HARPER | 11/24/10 5:30 AM EST
Updated: 11/24/10 5:38 AM EST

Today, the busiest travel day of the year, the Transportation Security Administration will introduce many Americans to a new indignity and offense to privacy.

If select airline passengers don’t want TSA agents to review denuded images of their bodies, they can “opt out” and suffer intimate pat-downs at the hands of these strangers. Public opposition to this Hobson’s choice is building. An Internet-organized “National Opt-Out Day” has been planned.

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POLITICO 44

Whatever happens with the protest, the question remains: Is the TSA overreacting to the threat?

Yes. TSA is overreacting. That’s exactly what Congress asked it to do—and it’s exactly what terrorists want Congress to ask for. The better approach now is no change to domestic air security from the status quo of a year ago.

Here’s an interesting statistic: In 99 million domestic flights over the past decade, transporting seven billion U.S. travelers, there have been zero bombs snuck on to planes and detonated. (The one failed attempt came from overseas.) Common sense calls that a risk that’s near zero.

But the media and political imperative — the box we’re in after last Christmas’ attempted bombing — demands something be done. With the strip/grope policy losing its grip, some say it’s time to get over the politically correct mentality that prevents profiling. Others search for alternate names to make profiling more palatable.

Alas, there is no profile that can reveal the next terrorist. Judging from recent acts, it could be Saudis, other Middle Easterners, South Asians, West Africans — or Americans. Terrorists are engineers, or students, ne’er-do-wells, U.S. military veterans, or active-duty U.S. military. They have Muslim names, except when their names are Reid, McVeigh or Kaczynski. Attackers invariably enter the country from overseas as tourists, or they are naturalized U.S. citizens, unless they were born in the United States. This confused jumble predicts nothing useful.

“Trusted traveler” plans have similarly flawed security logic. No known biography shows that a person should be treated as a “good guy,” given a biometric ID and accorded lower scrutiny at the airport. What if a “good guy” turns into a “bad guy” after passing the background check?

The alternative that looks best now is risk acceptance. The small risk of domestic undergarment bomb smuggling, suggested by a decade without any such attack, is something the public can tolerate — if prison-style searching of innocent American travelers is the alternative.

This is apostasy in Washington — where the political imperative is zero risk. But risk is a reality of life. We take risks when we drive, when we walk across a street and when we go to the fridge for that two-day-old slice of pizza.

This illusory quest for zero risk helps terrorism achieve its goals. As news of “Operation Hemorrhage” — smaller, low-cost attacks aimed to disrupt commerce and stoke fears — demonstrates clearly, terrorism works by inducing target states to overreact. That’s the only mode terrorists have for affecting major powers like the United States.

We’ve been nothing if not a patsy to their strategy. The element of surprise, central to terrorism, forces us to defend everything against every mode of attack — a logic that naturally bleeds us.

Readers' Comments (31)

I'd like to see some statistics on what the payoff is for all the indignities heaped on the traveling public. We know about the millions of fingernail clippers and tubes of toothpaste that have been confiscated or thrown away.

But how many explosive devices have been found? How many terrorist plots have been discovered because of a public groping by government agents? Is all this for nothing or are they actually finding anything that is truly dangerous?

"It is something new," Napolitano said. "Most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.”

YOU ARE DAMN RIGHT!! Of course we aren’t used to it! That is because WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS!!! You and your staff are the ones who are forcing us to choose between having nude images of ourselves be viewed by members of your staff or being subjected to having members of your staff force us to endure have our genitals touched against our will.

Not only have you been doing this to us as adults, you have been doing this to CHILDREN!!! NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY, the images that are being created and viewed by your staff of naked children is CHILD PORNOGRAPHY!!!

There will be LONG LINES and LONG DELAYS at the airport today, and you and your staff, along with the Mainstream Media, will BLAME THE CITIZENS who are standing up against this massive assault on our Constitutional Rights.

You tell us that having our genitals touched against our will “is not sexual assault”. Imagine someone standing in front of a Judge using that same argument. “Your Honor, it wasn’t sexual assault, I was simply forcing them to let me put my hands in their pants and feel their genitals.” How do you think the Judge would react to that argument?

The person who commits sexual assault doesn’t get to decide what an assault is, it is the victim and the jury. Well the jury comprised of the American people are sounding off loud and clear right now and we have had enough.

Fire Janet Napolitano, Fire Pistole. And STOP THE ABUSE at the airports.

Happy Opt Out Day, Everyone!!! xoxooxoxoxoxoox Good luck to all who are participating.

I hope that those who have the power to make decisions can see their way to change, The problem of Bureaucracy is a real one, Organizations want to grow in order to sustain themselves. Yet it is not useful for a Security organization to endlessly grow, as its attention is too narrowly focussed. Too many important things get left out if its interests dominate.

The violation to civil liberties and basic human dignity happening with the new airport security protocol is real and cannot continue.

The claim that safety is increased by these violations to civil liberties and human rights is simply unbelievable, for a number of reasons that I will not go into here.

Please stop this madness right now. I am a lifelong Democrat (30 years as a voter) but I am about to change camps. Can we please get this TSA/Homeland Security stuff under control. There is no reason to live as in a prison. People should not move about in the world, in airports, as meek mules. There will always be bad people in the world who try to harm others. We cannot and must not attempt to make ourselves safe from every possible attack that anyone could think of. Please don't let this nightmare that Bush began continue.

The way out is to distribute the blame in case anything goes wrong. I suspect that the way to do that, I hate to say, is to adopt Ron Paul's legislation. Then, if something goes wrong, the blame is distributed among the congress and among the people who urged the votes. Let civil liberties on which this country was built be the dominate consideration. Basic human dignity also.

As if the invasive security procedures and seizure of toothpaste and nail clippers didn't make flying miserable enough, airlines are considering adding this to their arsenal of punishment for choosing to fly:

In talking about his plans to double the of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the of AmeriCorps and the of the nation's military services, he made this rather shocking (and chilling) pledge:

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Listen up America. Only about 2 percent of travelers get the pat down...as a result of wearing something prohibited (that they should have read about before their flight) that triggered a beep. Only 2 percent. The news media have again failed the country by sensationalizing this story and not telling the real facts. When will we ever get a news media that we can trust again?

This is probably one of the best articles I have seen on Politico. Treats the issue fairly without pursuing hyperbole and name calling. Also its nice to see a conservative acknowledge the limitations of profiling and that we will never be able to screen out everyone.

However, sorry BillofRights, the TSA may be going overboard in its policies but your sense of indignation is misplaced. Healthcare professionals engage in far more extensive violations of our persons than the TSA. I would never call an physician or nurse a child molester or a rapist. The agents of the TSA should be given the same respect.

Is an airplane the only place a terrorist can kill 300 people in one swoop? Perhaps we need these same security measures for trains..........and buses............and office buildings..............and schools..............and grocery stores...........and on and on and on. People, the terrorists have already won. They're sitting in their caves watching CNN and they are laughing their asses off!

Don’t hold your breath for that to happen soon. But do hold on to your rights, liberties and common sense when you travel this holiday season. They are important parts of the nation’s true counterterrorism arsenal.

This issue will quickly migrate to the federal courts system where the panty-waists there will be afraid to make a stand and so boot it on to the SCOTUS. Either the 4th amendment has meaning or it is "Junk", worthlessly flawed and should have never been written and should be trash canned and we jshuld stand in lines wehre ever we go and get groped and molested to whatever degree the state of mind of the molester happens to be at any given moment.

Don’t hold your breath for that to happen soon. But do hold on to your rights, liberties and common sense when you travel this holiday season. They are important parts of the nation’s true counterterrorism arsenal.

This issue will quickly migrate to the federal courts system where the panty-waists there will be afraid to make a stand and so boot it on to the SCOTUS. Either the 4th amendment has meaning or it is "Junk", worthlessly flawed and should have never been written and should be trash canned and we jshuld stand in lines wehre ever we go and get groped and molested to whatever degree the state of mind of the molester happens to be at any given moment.

Everybody in the world knows now that TSA can't detect "internal" explosives (anal, v*****l, swallowed, surgically implanted, breast implants), so what would you go for if you were a suicide bomber? Something that you'd get caught using, so that you couldn't accomplish your purpose? So what are they testing for? Everything suicide bombers AREN'T going to do, i.e., inconveniencing everybody, wasting millions of hours, humiliating people, spending gazillions on machinery, and on salaries for useless public employees, and amusing the terrorists no end! Everyone involved in this sham should be fired, (including especially politicians) and never allowed to work for the US government again!

While agreeing with the author I find one point of disagreement. In assessing risks-- even the near zero to low risk of driving one's car off a cliff or falling at home while walking to the fridge, would affect only one to at most a few other people. The risk of missing even one jockey-shorts bomber who's goal to meet virgins is realized, on the other hand, would affect countless 100's of folks. As a result, low-risk activities of driving my car off a cliff compared to the low-risk of missing one terrorist carries expotentially different consequences in terms of lives affected. I want the risk of missing that terrorist reduced to as close to zero as possible.